


People in Motion

by ama



Series: a soul that's born in cold and rain // knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Gay Relationship, Communication, Counterculture, Dave lives, Established Relationship, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, San Francisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-15 08:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18069779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: It's 1973, and Klaus needs to choose between the life he's made in San Francisco with Dave, and the life and family he left behind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I threw in a line about Dave, Klaus, and a hippie commune in San Francisco in my last (canon compliant) fic, and just... couldn't let it go. So now we get a distinctly not canon-compliant installment. MUCH THANKS to rivlee for [this great mix](https://8tracks.com/rivlee/flowers-in-your-hair) of late 60s/early 70s tracks that was my writing soundtrack, and inspired several references in this fic and also the title.

January 2nd, 1973 was a Tuesday, and on the first Tuesday of every month, Klaus arrived at the record store where he worked at 8:30 AM to do inventory. He hated inventory. The only redeemable thing was that the owner relieved him early in the afternoons, so on this particular Tuesday he had time to stop at the Italian market on the way home for fresh vegetables, wine, and veal shanks. He was trying to make osso bucco, again, and fingers crossed this time it actually came out tender. Adrian really had been a magician.

Pepper ran up to him the moment the door opened, yipping excitedly, and he made a kissy face at her and nudged her out of the way with his foot.

“It’s 1973, Klaus.”

“Oh, Christ.”

With a sigh, he dropped the groceries on the kitchen table and turned on the radio.

“Ooh, I love this song,” he said, snapping his fingers. “God, we’re  so lucky to be in a time where we get a new Cher album every year.”

“Are we even going to talk about this?”

Klaus picked up Pepper and danced with her around the room.

“ _Living in a house divided—_ ”

“Who else do you think they’re going to kill?” Ben asked, propping his chin in his hand. “My money is on Vanya, definitely, and then probably Diego, because they killed that cop and he’s not going to let it go. He’s good, but outnumbered like that, I think he might lose. Maybe Pogo if they attack the house again. Allison’s probably safe, because good luck getting through Luther, but who knows? I think Five gives in once he loses three of you. He’s selfish, but not _that_ selfish.”

The dance dissolved into a light sway, and Klaus squeezed Pepper tight. She licked his face and her whole body wiggled with happiness.

Klaus thought about the stray cat he had found when he was twelve, hanging around outside the Eiffel Tower. He had smuggled her home and kept her in his room for two weeks, and for two weeks it was almost like he was a real kid with real siblings. They all helped take care of the cat; Allison put together a little nest of blankets, Luther helped Klaus slip food out of the kitchen, Diego made toys out of balls of yarn, Ben was the only one who could empty the litter box without complaining, Vanya stopped in for short visits to pet her even though  she was allergic. Even then, Five liked to pretend he was older and more mature than all the rest of them, but he was the one who named her.

_“Wheat?” Klaus said, wrinkling his nose. “You can’t name my cat after a type of grain. That’s so boring.”_

_“Our cat,” Allison corrected._

_“Not wheat.” Five rolled his eyes. “_ _I said we should name her Huit. It’s French for—”_

_“Eight,” Vanya said with a smile, scratching the cat on the underside of her golden chin. The cat purred happily._

It didn’t last. Of course it didn’t last. Mom came in his room and saw her, and the next time they were at the dinner table, studiously trying to ignore the faint attention-seeking meows from the floor above, Dad had asked “What on Earth is that noise?” and Mom answered “It’s the children’s cat.” Dad had thrown Huit back on the streets that very night—or, knowing him, had her put down.

Klaus buried his face in Pepper’s fur.

“And then, you know, the end of days.”

“Okay,” he said shortly.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll go back.”

He sat down at the kitchen table and squeezed Pepper just a little too hard; she yelped and jumped free of his grasp, down on the floor. She trotted over to the couch and jumped on Ben. They weren’t sure if she could actually _sense_ Ben, because she didn’t act differently when he was around, but the little terrier did have an eerie knack for always sitting right in his lap.

“Yeah, right. I’m not falling for that again.”

“Then what do you _want,_ Ben? I’m going to—I just—just—”

His elbows hit the table with a thunk and he ruffled his hair. Klaus had meant to go home. Really, he had. But first he was going to finish his tour, because after all, the guys were counting on him. Then he got cycled back to the States and Dave wanted to come out to his family and Jesus of _course_ Klaus would come for emotional support, what kind of asshole could say no to that? And yes, he had promised to move to San Francisco with him, and what was the harm in staying just a few more months? Just until Dave got situated? He told Ben it would only be six months, but then at the end of six months they got invited to join the Kaliflower Commune and that was pretty prestigious, as far as communes went, it wasn’t like they could turn that down, and… well, he spent most of 1971 even higher than usual, so yeah, that was on him, he’d take responsibility for that.

But then 1972 came and Dave got a little tired of the whole free love thing and suggested they maybe give monogamy a shot, and that would mean getting their own apartment, a real one this time, not someone’s spare bedroom, and he was so _hopeful_ and _sweet_ and….

He was fucked. He was so royally fucked.

“Today.”

There was a long pause.

“You mean it?”

“Yeah. I mean it. You’re right, I should have—I’ve just made this so much harder than it needed to be.”

He rested his forehead on his folded arms and cried for a long time, and Pepper came up and put her paws on his leg. When he started to ugly sniffle, though, Klaus took a deep breath and got himself under control.

“Hey.” Ben was standing right next to him, and his voice was soft. “I’m sorry, Klaus. I really am. But it’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” he said miserably, not believing it.

“Briefcase is on the top shelf of the closet, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go.”

“No,” Klaus said, lifting his head. Pepper jumped into his lap and he scratched her ears. “No, I’ve got to wait until Dave gets home. I owe him an explanation.”

“Klaus, you can’t tell him—”

“I’m not going to tell him the _truth_. But I have to tell him something.”

“You’re just going to make it even—”

“I know!” Klaus shouted.

The radio sounded unnaturally loud in the silence that followed. It was a commercial break—a laundry detergent jingle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ben nod and then fade away. Klaus dropped Pepper on the floor again and stood to put the groceries away. He loved their kitchen. It was a riot of color—bright yellow cabinets on which they had painted a riot of sloppy red flowers, a turquoise fridge left over from the 50s, mismatched chairs in various shades of green. The curtains were white to start with, but Klaus had tried to dye them yellow and they had come out this ugly mustard color. Dave wouldn’t let him get rid of them.

He loved everything about the apartment. Most of their furniture was dirt-cheap or salvaged, and the neighborhood was pretty crappy, and there was never enough hot water, and it was the top floor of a big house divided into four units so they could always hear the goings-on of their neighbors. But it was cozy and beautiful, enough room for them and their dog and a couple of friends to visit in the evenings. It was a _home._

“Fuck,” Klaus hissed as he slammed the fridge door. It wasn’t as satisfying as he had hoped, so he opened it and slammed it shut three more times.

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and somebody whistling “Here Comes the Sun,” and he wiped hastily at his face.

“Klaus, you home?” Dave asked as he came through the door. His mom was following him. She usually was—or at least, Klaus almost always saw her when he was sober, unlike the other ghosts who had died from extended illnesses. They usually only stuck around for a day or two once he made it clear he was ignoring them—it was the sudden deaths that made life hell.

Miriam Katz hadn’t made any demands of him at all. She just drifted around the apartment, a gaunt woman in a green gingham dress with a kerchief over her bald head. She corrected them on their housekeeping sometimes, especially in the beginning when there was a 50-50 chance that any home improvement project would end in disaster. She usually addressed Dave, but Klaus had been the main beneficiary of her advice.

“Yeah,” he called back. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, kitchen.”

Dave knelt down to greet Pepper first, and then walked through to the kitchen and greeted Klaus with a hand on his back and a kiss on his neck.

“Hey,” he murmured warmly. He’d grown his hair out since they got back. It was the style, and it suited him, gentle waves framing his face, lightened from the sun.

“Hey,” Klaus said with a feeble smile. “You’re home early.”

“Yeah, I got out at three ’cause I knew you’d be home. Sharon and Lonnie are having people over for drinks tonight and I’d like to go, but I thought I’d get you alone for a little  bit first.”

He nipped at Klaus’s ear and a shiver went through him. He didn’t respond lewdly, though, and Dave caught on that something was wrong. He stood up straight and took hold of Klaus’s shoulders, turning him around.

“You been crying?” he asked with a frown, brushing a thumb over his cheeks.

“It’s nothing. Nothing,” Klaus said, shaking his head and avoiding his gaze. “Just—bit of a rough day. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Dave said, though he didn’t look convinced. He rubbed his hands up and down Klaus’s arms and kissed him, first on the mouth and then on the forehead. “I stopped by the pawn shop on my way home. Got you something.”

“Oh, Dave, you didn’t—”

“Yeah, I did. C’mere.”

He led Klaus over to the couch and they sat down. Pepper squeezed into the space between Klaus’s leg and the armrest. Dave rubbed his hands on his knees and grinned at him.

“So, I stopped by the pawn shop, and I was talking to Tammy about—you know, her and Linda. I asked if there was a secret.”

“A secret?”

“Yeah. I mean, I figured they’ve been together for fifteen years, that’s the longest of anyone we know, right? So if there _was_ a secret, she would know. I don’t know why, something about the new year, I keep thinking about how it’s been almost five years since we met, and how lucky we are, you know? I keep feeling like our luck has got to run out sometime, and I want to be prepared in case it does. Now, unfortunately, Tammy says there is no secret— _but_ , if there was, it would be…” He took Klaus’s hand and squeezed it. “Being honest and upfront. Not just assuming the other person knows how you feel, but sitting them down every once in a while and saying… I love you, and I’m so happy with you, and I want to be with you for the long haul. So. Klaus Hargreeves, I love you, and I’m so happy with you, and I want to be with you for the long haul.”

“Oh,” Klaus said weakly.

“This isn’t a surprise, is it?” Dave laughed.

“No. No, it’s not. You’ve always been so good to me.”

He wrapped his arm around Dave’s neck and buried his face in his shoulder. God, this was the _worst_. The absolute worst. Klaus had never really had to break up with anyone before—except maybe Adrian, and that had been after three weeks of crashing at his place. Adrian had been kind of relieved to see him go.

“And then, you know, it was at the shop, she’s got to make rent, so she suggested—”

Dave extricated himself and pulled a small pouch out of his pocket. He turned it over and dropped two wooden rings into his palm.

“She didn’t have much in terms of men’s jewelry, but I liked these a lot, and this one made me think of you—hopefully it fits—” He held up one of the rings. It was a bright, warm tawny color with little sunbursts engraved on it. Or maybe they were flowers. Klaus’s heart constricted. “I know it doesn’t actually _mean_ much, but—”

“Oh _God_.”

Klaus jumped up and paced around the room with his back towards Dave. His head was spinning.

“Klaus?”

He should have listened to Ben. He should have left long before this, should have opened that damn briefcase again the moment he realized what had happened. Five _years_ he had waited. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Shit shit shit shit shit…” He dug his fingers into his hair.

“Klaus, what’s wrong?” Dave stood and caught him by the waist. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he repeated softly. “If you don’t want it—if it’s too much or too soon or… it was just an idea. Forget it.”

“It’s not… that’s not it.” Klaus dropped his hands to Dave’s shoulders, then cupped his face. “Dave, listen. You are—you are such a great guy. Really, you are, and these last couple of years have been—” He took a deep breath. “But…”

“But?” Dave echoed, not a question, and the reassuring smile vanished from his face. “Klaus—”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Is it—did I do something wrong?”

Klaus’s heart broke. He would have thought there was anything left in him to break, but that did it. Dave was the strongest, bravest person he knew. He had kept Klaus alive in Vietnam and every damn day since. Held him when he cried and when he shuddered his way through withdrawal. Moved halfway across the country and back without a word of complaint. He had come out to his family, for God’s sakes, in _1969,_ for no other reason than because hiding Klaus away made him feel like a coward.

All that, he had endured, and now his voice wavered and his brow furrowed and this was it, this was the worst thing Klaus had ever done.

“No, God no, Dave, it’s not you, at all. It’s just—my family. I have to go back to them, there’s this emergency, and it’s not fair to drag you into it. I just have to go.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pepper watching them from the couch, her little stump of a tail wagging absently. “You can keep Pepper,” he blurted out. “The apartment, everything—I don’t want to put you out.”

“Put me out?” Dave demanded, and there was that spark of anger Klaus had been expecting. Dave stepped back, eyes flashing, and put his hands on his hips. “What the _fuck_ , Klaus? You’re not making any sense! Is there someone else?”

“No! No, of course not—” Unthinkingly he reached out to touch Dave’s cheek, but the other man stepped back again and knocked his hand away.

“Then what is it?”

“I told you, it’s—”

“Your family? Your family, who haven’t spoken to you in _five_ _years,_ suddenly have this emergency that requires you to break up with me? Bullshit!”

The loud voices upset Pepper; she stood up on the couch and yapped at them, and Klaus waved his hand and hissed at her to shut up. It didn’t work, because she was a dog, and also their neighbor to the left had overdosed a week ago and was wailing at him, and the radio was still playing in the background, and Ben had reappeared. He hadn’t said anything but Klaus could hear him sighing because stupid Klaus fucked everything up again.

“Klaus, just _talk_ to me,” Dave begged, stepping forward again, putting his hands on Klaus’s neck and ducking down, forcing Klaus to look him in the eye. “Please, baby, just—I’ll go with you. Okay? I can help you deal with this, if you just tell me—”

“I can’t,” Klaus said hoarsely, and damn it, now they were both crying. “I can’t, I’m sorry—”

“You’re my whole life, Klaus. I gave up everything for you, I—”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have let you do that—”

“ _Let_ me? I’ve never been happier. We gave up everything we knew and we made something better. We’ve been so happy here and now you’re just going to throw it away?” Dave kissed him on his wet cheeks, over and over. “Please, please don’t do this. Stay. Whatever it is, we can work this out.”

“No,” Klaus said miserably. “We can’t. I’m sorry, Dave, this is all my fault. I’m sorry.”

Pepper was whining, now, the radio was so loud, and the screaming had started back up again, all of it, the dead calling for him, the soldiers calling for a medic, his own voice crying for anybody, _anybody_ , and it was all too much and he stumbled back and pressed his hands to his ears and that didn’t do anything—

“Oh for God’s sake.”

It was a supremely reasonable voice. Brisk and businesslike, but not cruel. It cut through the rest of the noise—he could still hear all of it, but it was just a little quieter than before. Klaus lifted his head and found himself staring at Miriam Katz, small and underweight, her insubstantial hand resting on her son’s arm.

“Tell him the truth,” she ordered. “You owe him that much.”

“I know I do,” Klaus replied. “But he’ll never believe me.”

“Yes, he will.” She tried to brush an errant lock of hair out of Dave’s face, but her hand passed right through him. “You underestimate him.”

“Wait,” he blurted out. “Do you _know_? Like, everything? Have you been listening all this time?”

“Of course I have. I’m dead, not deaf,” she scoffed. “We’re here even when you’re not listening to us, you know. It’s not all about you.”

“I didn’t think—”

“Klaus,” Dave said in a gentle voice. He sounded calm, almost relieved, and he swallowed and brushed away his tears impatiently. “Sweetheart, you’re tripping. There’s nobody here, it’s just you and me. That’s what this is, it’s just a bad trip.”

“I’m sober,” Klaus said. His throat felt like sandpaper, and he swallowed thickly. “I promised. I’m sober.”

It was his birthday present to Dave. One month sober. He still had two and a half weeks to go, but he was pretty sure he would have made it; he’d mostly gone off the hard stuff in the last few years, just because the soft stuff was so much more convenient. You could barely walk through Haight-Ashbury without getting a contact high, and even when the Haight started to go to shit, Klaus stayed away from opiates, because Dave wanted him to.

But he knew even the frequency of his marijuana use made Dave uncomfortable, sometimes, so every once in a while Klaus got sober for him. A week here, a weekend there. Long enough to prove that yes, he could do it, and yes, he really did love Dave regardless of his level of intoxication. As if that was ever in doubt. Dave stared at him now with that familiar, gentle, worried look, and Klaus groaned.

“Okay,” he said, dragging his hands down his face. He paused and then slapped himself lightly. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s, um. Let’s sit down.”

He took a few steps over to the kitchen and sat at the table. Dave followed warily. Klaus’s hands skittered back and forth over the tabletop.

“I, uh, I’m going to explain. Everything. I swear on—on Pepper’s life, I’m going to tell you everything. But first I need you to promise me that you’ll let me get through this, okay? No matter how crazy it sounds, no matter how weird it gets—I need you to give me an hour to let it sink in.”

“Okay,” Dave said slowly.

“And you might get mad, and I get it, but just—don’t punch me for an hour. That’s all I ask. And you’re going to think I’m nuts and—” He laughed with an edge of hysteria, which wasn’t helpful. “—and higher than a goddamn kite, but I _swear_ I’m not and for this whole hour you’ve got to try to believe that. Okay?”

“Klaus, you’re scaring me.”

“Oh good, we’re on the right track.”

Klaus took a deep breath and flattened his palms on the table. He’d never had to do this before. Sure, he’d had to tell people he was Klaus Hargreeves of the Umbrella Academy, but they had all known what that meant. This was going to be a lot harder. He looked up and snickered. They had four chairs at their kitchen table; Klaus and Dave were sitting in two of them, and Ben and Mrs. Katz were sitting in the other two. A regular family meeting.

God, this was so fucked.

“For the record, this is one of the stupidest things you’ve ever done,” Ben said. Klaus flapped his hand at him. “I’m just saying! You’re going to break his brain and then disappear. That’s just mean.”

 _Not like I had much of a choice,_ Klaus thought sourly, and then he tuned Ben out and addressed Dave.

“I told you I had six siblings, and we were all adopted, and all around the same age. That’s true, but it’s a bit freakier than that. See, we were all born on October 1st, at pretty much the same minute as far as anyone can tell, and none of our moms were pregnant on September 30th.”

“You mean they didn’t know they were pregnant?” Dave asked, thoroughly bewildered at the turn the conversation had taken.

“No, I mean _they weren’t pregnant._ There were newspaper articles about it. My mom was this German gal, she visited her gynecologist two days before she gave birth and he swore up and down she wasn’t knocked up then. Vanya’s mom, she was swimming when it happened. There were plenty of people around who saw her in her bathing suit. One minute she’s this cute little size six, the next.” He indicated a ballooning stomach and then shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“Never mind. Let’s not get stuck on the babies—my point is, shit was weird, and that’s why our father adopted us. He thought there was something special about us, and he was right.” He shrugged. “Growing up, all of us except Vanya developed these… special abilities. Like, um, Luther is crazy strong, like Superman strong, and Allison, she just has to tell someone to do something and they’ll do it and—wait, no, I know that doesn’t _sound_ all that special but—”

With a frustrated groan, Klaus dropped his head onto the table and knocked his forehead on the wood twice.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, and then he swung back up and blurted out, “I can see dead people.”

Dave’s eyebrows rose, very slowly, up to his hairline.

“You can… see dead people?”

“Yep.”

“Like… a psychic?”

“No? No, technically I’m a medium, there’s a difference. Psychics are fake. Or, I don’t know who am I to say, right? I don’t know if psychics are real, but if they’re telling you they can see the future or read your mind or whatever because a ghost told them, then they’re lying. Ghosts don’t know shit about the future. No offense,” he added when Mrs. Katz pursed her lips at the language.

“Technically, I know a lot about the future,” Ben pointed out, and Klaus’s mouth twitched in a smile.

“Okay,” Dave said slowly. “And how is this relevant to you breaking up with me?”

Yeah, Dave didn’t believe him.

Klaus sighed and dragged a hand down his face again.

“It’s not. Well, no, it is, we’re going to circle back to it in a minute. But I had to start with the dead thing, because the whole reason I’m telling you any of this is that… your mom kind of told me to.”

Dave stared back at him blankly.

“My mom,” he repeated.

“Yeah. Miriam, right? That’s—that’s your name?” he asked the ghost. She nodded, but her eyes were still on her son.

“Okay,” Dave said, putting his hands flat on the table with a bitter smile. “Okay. Yeah, we’re done. Fuck you, Klaus.”

“Wait, no—” Klaus lunged across the table, reaching for Dave’s hands, but he had already leaned back. “You _promised_! You promised me an hour, fucker!”

“You know, I really thought I knew you,” Dave laughed humorlessly as he stood. “I thought, who cares if he acts catty or selfish or petty or—who cares? _I_ know better, _I_ know he’s actually kind and brave and thoughtful, and then you decided to break up with me without even the courtesy of a real reason, and then! Then you drag my _dead mother_ into this to get out of answering a fucking question? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“The fact that ghosts talk to me! Dave, I swear, I’m not lying, she’s right here—” He gestured at the empty chair and made eye contact with Mrs. Katz, pleading. “She’s here, her name is Miriam and she’s wearing a green dress and a scarf thing on her head and—help me—”

“Tell him that I love him and I’m proud of him,” she said, leaning forward.

Some kind of high, impatient whine escaped Klaus’s throat.

“That’s very sweet, but I really don’t think that’s specific enough to help me right now—”

“Tell him!”

“She loves you and she’s proud of you,” Klaus repeated as Dave strode across the living room. He was hampered by Pepper, who was circling around his feet and slowing him down. Good girl, Pepper. “And she was sorry that you changed your major because she always thought you would’ve been a great writer.”

“Shut up.”

Dave picked Pepper up and reached for the leash hanging by the door to the apartment. Klaus tripped over himself as he stood and crossed the living room. In the back of his mind he realized that this was what he had wanted to happen in the first place—to break up with Dave and have him accept it—but he just couldn’t leave things like this. Mrs. Katz followed him, wringing her hands and talking urgently in his ear.

“She packed you peanut butter and banana sandwiches and an apple and an oatmeal raisin cookie for the first day of school,” he said. “Every first day of school, right up until college. Your first grade teacher was Miss Fincher—no, sorry, Fischer—who was your dad’s next door neighbor growing up. She loved Dean Martin and Dorothy Lamour—your mom, not Miss Fischer. Her favorite book was _Jane Eyre,_ and her favorite holiday was Shavuos. And honestly, if I was lying, do you _really_ think I could pull Shavuos out of my head? I don’t even remember which one that is!”

Dave paused with his hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t turn around. He was thinking, probably, combing through his memories, convinced that he must have told Klaus all of this at _some_ point. Klaus looked beseechingly at the ghost of Mrs. Katz, who bit her lip.

“This was a secret. I never told anyone, and I shouldn’t, but… He called me from a payphone once,” she said in a quiet, trembling voice. “He was drunk, and he wanted to tell me—”

“I already knew that,” Klaus interrupted. His voice was soft but undoubtedly chilly, and she winced.

_“I tried to come out to my mom once,” Dave said. His head was resting in Klaus’s lap and his eyes were glassy as he gazed up at the nighttime sky. “It was my first year at college. I had a crush on my roommate, and one night I got wasted and called her up and said I thought I was in love. She didn’t want to hear it. She told me to stop talking, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, I was just confused… I wouldn’t shut up, though, and finally she said ‘I’m dying and you’re bothering me with this now?’ That was how I found out she had cancer.”_

_“Oh shit,” Klaus muttered. They were in the middle of a crowded clearing, just two of fifty people clustered around a bonfire, but they might as well have been alone. He bent down and kissed Dave on the forehead._

_“She tried to walk it back, you know, said everything would be okay, it was just an exaggeration. But it wasn’t. She died about seven months later.” He paused. “We never talked about it again. Pretended it hadn’t happened. She could still smile at me and hug me and look me in the eye, but I always felt—somehow, things had changed. And for years afterwards I regretted it. Ruining those last couple of months.”_

_“Shit, sweetheart, that’s…”_

_“I know.”_

Mrs. Katz squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“I reacted poorly. I know that. I should have prepared myself.”

“She says she’s sorry about what she said when you came out,” Klaus relayed. “Especially because—”

Dave turned his head just slightly. When Klaus didn’t continue, he turned around.

“What?” he asked, hopeful and clearly hating it..

“Especially,” Klaus repeated slowly. “Because she already thought you might be gay. Because when you were five, she caught you kissing Jo—”

“Joey Redman,” Dave said faintly. “Oh my God.”

“You said you were playing knights and someone had to be the princess—aw, I did the same thing when I was a kid. Except I had to fight my sisters to be the princess, and I didn’t get to kiss any cute boys because they were all related to me. Anyway, she says she should have been prepared and she’s sorry and she’s glad that you’re happy now.”

“Oh my God,” Dave repeated. “I never told you that. I haven’t thought about that in years—I’d forgotten it. I forgot all about it.” There was a long pause. “She’s—she’s really here?”

Klaus nodded. Dave sat down on the couch—fell into it, really, dropping Pepper at his side. She whined a bit as she realized she wasn’t getting a walk, but then she laid down with her head in Dave’s lap and closed her eyes. Dave leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and buried his head in his hands.

“I can’t—this is—” His shoulders lifted and fell as he took a deep breath, and when he looked up, Klaus recognized the look on his face. Calm, but deceptively so. The look of a soldier who needed to figure out a way to survive in the middle of the shit. No use protesting, just get it done. “You can actually _see_ her?”

“Yeah. She’s right here,” Klaus said, gesturing. Mrs. Katz waved sadly. Dave’s eyes stared right through her.

“How does she look?”

“They don’t change after death, as far as I can tell. Same clothes, same injuries, everything. She looks pretty snazzy, all things considering. I’m digging those earrings, by the way.”

“Thank you,” the ghost said with a chuckle, fingering the pearl drops in her ears, and Dave’s lips curved up.

“I know exactly which ones you’re talking about. They were my grandma’s. She wore them on special occasions, and towards—towards the end she asked…” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took another deep breath. “Hi, mom.”

“Hi, sweetie,” Mrs. Katz said, with Klaus’s help.

“I missed you. A lot.”

“She knows.”

“There’s this prayer we say for the dead,” he said. “It’s called the Kaddish. When your parent dies, you’re supposed to say it every day for eleven months. Because if someone’s soul if lost, if they were a bad person, the Kaddish helps them get through the final judgement, and the longest that can ever take is twelve months. Since I know my mother was a good person, I was only supposed to say it for eleven months.”

“That’s really sweet, Dave.”

“I didn’t do it,” Dave said with a twist of bitterness. “It was hard. I had to go to services every day, and sometimes there wouldn’t be enough people, or I was busy, or tired… I only said it regularly for about four months. After that, it was just once a week. Sometimes not even then.” He swallowed. “Do you think that’s why…? If I had done it—do you think she would be at peace?”

“God, Dave, no,” Klaus said, reaching for his hand. “I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but… they’re _all_ like this. All the ones I’ve seen. If there’s something else after, if there is a peace, I don’t think it’s about good or bad. And I really don’t think it’s your fault.”

“It’s not,” Mrs. Katz said. She knelt and let her hand hover over Dave’s knee. “I was watching. Not every day—we fade in and out, and time… it’s an odd thing. But I was watching, and you and your father and your brother, you did everything you needed to do. I’ve never been disappointed by you. Not once.”

Klaus relayed this, and Dave nodded. His gaze lingered on the spot Klaus had indicated for a long time, and then he started. The color drained from his face and he jerked his head to look at Klaus.

“Klaus, I’m so fucking sorry. All that shit I said—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a wave as he carefully walked around the ghost. He walked through Ben all the time, but it seemed rude to do the same for people he hadn’t known in life, especially his soon-to-be-ex not-quite-mother-in-law. He sat on the couch and crossed his legs. “I _am_ —what was it?—catty and petty and selfish. I’m big enough to admit it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Dave asked, reaching out to squeeze his hand. Klaus should have pulled away, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. “I mean, I know it’s—hard to believe—but you could have proven it to me before now—”

“Not necessarily,” Klaus hedged. “It doesn’t always work. I only see them when I’m sober.”

“You’re never sober,” Dave said, forehead wrinkling in confusion.

“Exactly.”

“But why—? You’ve got this gift and you—”

“Gift?” Klaus laughed. “Gift, oh that’s a good one. Dave, it’s fucking miserable. Present company excluded, of course,” he said, waving at Ben and Mrs. Katz. “The dead, they’re so—so needy—”

“Needy?” Dave repeated with a frown. “Klaus, you could be helping people.”

“No, see, that’s the thing,” Klaus said. He dug in his pockets for a cigarette and flicked open his lighter. “I can’t, really. Not all of them. Because what they _really_ want is to be not-dead, and I can’t do that, and they’re never satisfied with anything else. And something _happens_ to them.”

He paused for a moment, searching for the words, and tapped his cigarette against his knee.

“It’s like—they lose some of their compassion. No, I’ve got it. It’s like they’re on the front lines and I’m the medic. They don’t give a shit if _I’m_ scared or if _I’m_ wounded. They don’t give a shit if there are ten other people who want my attention. They’re terrified and they think I can help, so they scream for me, and they don’t stop screaming. And I swear, when I’m sober it’s like I’m sending out some kind of homing beacon, because I start with one and then suddenly there’s twenty of them and they just _won’t go away_. And by the way, they’re not pretty, either, none of this white-robes-always-at-peace thing. If they got shot, got their hands cut off, if their guts were spilling out, that’s how they come to me.”

“Jesus,” Dave muttered.

“Yeah!” Klaus said, jabbing the air. “Yeah, and now imagine that starts happening when you’re four, and by the time you’re eight years old you’re terrified of them and the guy who calls himself your _father_ decides the best way to get over it is to lock you overnight in a _crypt_. Fucks you up just a little bit!”

His hands were shaking, and he crossed his arm to hide the tremor. He was all twisted up like a pretzel, and after just a moment of hesitation, Dave draped his arms him. Klaus closed his eyes and swallowed.

Every once in a while, he woke up in the middle of the night, shaking and shouting and crying, and Dave held him and whispered sweet nothings in his ear until he calmed down. Dave thought it was a stress reaction to Vietnam, which wasn’t entirely wrong. Klaus had noticed that he usually got Vietnam flashbacks when he was coming down from the high of  LSD, coke, or just alcohol. Weed or heroin calmed him way down except for the more stubborn, ghost-related trauma, and wouldn’t _that_ be an interesting study for psychiatrists if it wasn’t the most niche, impractical, batshit insane phenomenon anyone had ever heard of.

“That’s awful, Klaus,” Dave said in a muted voice, rubbing his back. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“What the hell was wrong with your dad?”

“Jury’s still out.”

He rested his head on Dave’s shoulder, knowing full well that he shouldn’t. This was a break up. He couldn’t let himself lose sight of that, even though willpower was decidedly not his strong suit.

“So the rest of your siblings are—like this?”

“Mostly,” Klaus shrugged. “Not Vanya. And not all the same. Like I said, Luther’s—” He gestured with both hands. “Big. Strong. Diego’s good with throwing things. He can throw knives around corners. Allison does this thing—she says _I heard a rumor_ and whatever she says after that just happens. Ben’s dead, but he used to have, like, tentacles. They just kind of burst out of his chest. Pretty nasty looking, but useful against robbers and shit.”

Dave nodded slowly, trying to process it all.

“And you had one more brother, too, right? The one who ran away? What was his name?”

“He didn’t have one,” Klaus said, pronouncing each word very particularly. “None of us did, really.”

“What’d’you mean, you didn’t have a name?” Dave asked with a bit of a chuckle. “Your name is Klaus.”

Klaus snorted and dropped his head back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? But the fun thing about the Hargreeves family is that literally everything we do is _deeply unsettling_ in some way. For example—our mom wasn’t in the picture until we were four. Really she was brought in as a permanent, live-in nanny. And she was the one who gave us names. Before that, and after that, as far as Dad was concerned, we were just numbers. Number Four,” he said, mocking his father’s voice. “That was me.”

There was a kind of horrified pause.

“Don’t feel like you have to react to all of this,” Klaus said, waving his cigarette in a circle. “I know, every bit of it is so fucked up, it gets kind of monotonous after a while.”

“Okay,” Dave said, letting go of Klaus so he could bury his face in his hands again. “Okay.” He shook his head like a dog and looked up at Klaus. “So this—family emergency that we have to break up over—it has something to do with all of this? All this—trippy, terrible bullshit?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said, scratching his forehead with his pinkie finger. “It’s actually about Five, the one who ran away. He’s always been a little precocious. Mom offered him a name, but he said no. He was really invested in all that Umbrella Academy nonsense. That’s what Dad called it—all this training we did with our powers so we could, you know, save the world or whatever, it was called the Umbrella Academy. Five could jump through space. You know, one second he’s here, the next he’s across the room. _Annoying_ as hell, and he could be a little prick about it, too. Anyway, Five got it into his head that he wanted to jump through time. Dad always told him no, it was too dangerous, but one morning Five fought with him and ran outside and just—did it. Jumped into the future.”

“Into the _future?_ ” Dave repeated.

“Yup. Jumped too far, as it turns out. He couldn’t find his way back until just a little bit before I met you, actually. Turns out he jumped past some sort of—I dunno—apocalypse sort of thing. No people, death and destruction, yadda yadda. Spent _decades_ there before he found his way back. And the emergency is that there must be other time travelers out there and he must have royally pissed them off, because two of them attacked our house and took me hostage. I managed to get away, but they’re still out there and maybe going after the rest of my family, and I have to go warn them.”

“Warn them?” Dave said, a poor, confused parrot. “But that must have been at least five years ago. Why haven’t you—”

His jaw went slack. Klaus gave him a pained, sympathetic smile.

“Yeah.”

“ _No_.”

“Yeahhhh.”

“This is—” Dave jumped up and laced his fingers behind his head, pacing across the living room floor. He passed through his mother several times without noticing it. “This is insane, Klaus!”

“Any more insane than ghosts?” Ben said.

“You can shut the hell up,” Klaus retorted, and Dave stopped pacing with a frown.

“Okay, I know I can’t see her or hear her or anything, but I still don’t like you talking to my mother like that.”

“No, God,” Klaus said with a dismissive gesture. “That’s not her. _She’s_ over there,” he said, pointing. “That’s my brother Ben.”

“Your brother Ben,” Dave repeated with a little bit of hysteria in his voice. Yeah, that wasn’t a surprise. “The dead one. With the tentacles. Who—who fucking _time traveled_ here with you? This is unreal. This is _impossible_.”

“You’d think.” Klaus stubbed out his cigarette. “Listen, I’m really sorry about all this. It just kind of got away from me.”

“When?” Dave asked. “When— just—when?”

“I was born in 1989,” Klaus said, figuring that was the easier number to deal with. “I came here from March 2019.”

“Twenty—” Dave repeated. “ _Twenty_ nineteen? Like, like thirty years from now?”

“Fifty.” For a moment they stared at each other, and then Klaus sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dave. I really am. I just—it was an accident at first. The psychos who kidnapped me, they had this briefcase and I stole it and I guess it was their time machine, because the second I opened it, bam, I’m in fucking Vietnam in 1968.”

“Holy shit,” Dave whispered. “You _did_ come out of nowhere. I didn’t believe it. I thought—I had just woken up, I thought I had dreamed it.”

“Yeah. And I was going to go back, but there were all these people around and I was worried that if I made a big deal out of trying to get alone with his big fucking briefcase, they’d confiscate it or open it themselves and then I’d be shit out of luck. Then I thought, well, I’m actually doing some good here, people are relying on me, and that actually felt pretty good, so I stuck around, and then… I fell in love with you,” he said simply. “I’ve never felt like that towards anyone else, and I just wanted to savor it for a little longer. It turned into a lot longer before I knew what was happening.”

Dave stared at him, eyes boring a hole in Klaus’s skull.

“You really love me?” he asked.

“God, yeah. Shit, Dave, you think I could fake that?”

“No, I mean…” Dave crossed the floor and knelt in front of him so that they were more or less-eye-to-eye, and took Klaus’s hands in both of his. “I mean, you still love me? Even though you were going to leave?”

“Of _course_. It’s breaking my fucking heart to leave you. If it wasn’t for the fact that I literally think my whole family might be tortured and murdered…”

“I love you, too.” Dave cradled Klaus’s hands in his, and bent to kiss his knuckles. “I’ve loved you for years, Klaus, and I never understood you. It didn’t matter, because I _knew_ you. None of this changes that.”

“Thank you,” Klaus murmured. He tilted his head down and kissed Dave on the lips—gentle and still and sweet. A goodbye kiss.

“If you really have to go back… take me with you,” Dave whispered.

Or maybe not.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“Take me with you,” he repeated.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Klaus laughed. “And you’re calling _me_ crazy?”

“I know it’s crazy,” Dave agreed. “I know there’s a lot I still don’t know. But Klaus… you’re talking about walking into an ambush on purpose. About going back to a place you hated. And I know you love your family but you’ve always made it pretty damn clear you didn’t get along—even the fact that you could stay here for five years without them, that says something. And after all this, after all we’ve been through, you can’t think I’d let you go alone, can you?”

“Wait, no, _wait_.” Klaus stood and crossed the small apartment again, leaning against the kitchen table. “Dave, you can’t come with me. I don’t know if—I’m probably never coming back!”

“I know. I started this conversation by saying that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.” Incredibly, Dave grinned. “You remember, like twelve hours ago when this conversation started.”

“But you’re—you’re from here. Now.”

“You’ve made a life here, haven’t you? So why can’t I make one there?”

“Because, your job, your—your friends, Pepper—your family. They’re all here.”

The grin dropped off Dave’s face.

“I didn’t think about that,” he admitted. He frowned at the floor for a moment, and then he shook his head. “No. It doesn’t matter. You remember what happened the last time Jon and I saw each other, right? You remember our dad having to _drag_ him off of me? There’s no coming back from that. And my dad…”

He trailed off and swallowed hard. His relationship with his father wasn’t as bad; Klaus knew they talked on the phone a couple of times a year, and as long as they didn’t talk about Klaus much, the conversations were perfectly civil.

“He might change,” Klaus nudged. “A lot of people do. The next couple decades are a lot better for the gays than the last few.”

“I hope he does,” Dave said calmly. “But I can’t put my life on hold—I can’t throw my life away—waiting for someone else to _maybe_ change. I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Klaus said. His brain was short-circuiting. He shrugged and smiled and paced in a circle around the kitchen table. “No, you’re not, you just can’t. Okay? You can’t.”

“Why not?” Dave demanded.

“Because—because—”

“I love you and I want us to—”

“Because that’s not enough!” Klaus burst forth. “Because _I’m_ —”

He heard it before he said it, and clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Dave was staring at him, shock and horror and pity drawing lines on his face.

“Oh, fuck,” Klaus mumbled as he turned away, crossing his arms.

“Not enough? Klaus—sweetheart—”

“Don’t,” Klaus said, holding up a hand. “Just don’t.”

“No, listen to me.” Dave stepped forward and tugged at Klaus’s arms, unfolding them until the two of them were facing each other, although Klaus refused to look up. He stared down at the scuffed coral tiles beneath his feet and at his hands, loosely clasped in each of Dave’s. “Before I met you, I was just—going through the motions. I didn’t spent a single minute of my life thinking about what I wanted, until I met you. And then—I wanted you. If that meant risking discharge, leaving behind my family, moving, traveling. Trusting that we’d find a place to sleep at night, trusting that you loved me even when other guys were fawning over you, trusting myself, that I could figure things out…. It was all worth it. And it was all you, baby. I wouldn’t have any of this if it weren’t for you, and it came from nowhere. I love you. I have faith in you. I have faith that we can start from nothing again.”

“No,” Klaus said miserably. He yanked his hands back and wrung them anxiously. “No, Dave, I’ve been lying to you for five years. Christ, this isn’t an _affair_ , it’s not drugs, it’s not secret credit card debt, it’s not a normal relationship problem. I am just—so fucked up in so many ways you can’t be expected to handle. You have a life here and I can’t let you throw it away for—”

“For the man I love?”

“Stop,” Klaus said. “Stop saying—please  stop.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Dave marveled. “After all we’ve been through, you still don’t believe that I love you.”

“I _believe_ you,” Klaus muttered mulishly, and Dave frowned down his nose at him.

“But you don’t think loving you is worth it.”

Klaus had nothing to say to that. He closed his eyes as Dave tenderly took Klaus’s face in his hands and touched their foreheads together, then their lips. The radio was still playing in the background, somehow. _Don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love? Wouldn’t you love somebody to love? You better find somebody, somebody to love_.

God, that took him back. Sunday morning at Woodstock, the day after Dave told Klaus about his mom, a scant few weeks after he had come out to his father and his brother so disastrously. They’d been up all night waiting for Jefferson Airplane to get on, because some chick had told them they started at 2 AM when really they were scheduled for 8. They had danced together—far too slow for the beat of the song, but between the sleep deprivation and his first-ever ecstacy high, Dave couldn’t keep up. He’d crooned the words in Klaus’s ear in a slurred falsetto and Klaus couldn’t breathe for laughing.

Klaus couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

“Give me an hour,” Dave murmured. “Just one hour, and we’ll see if you believe me by the end of it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has more historical references compared to the last one... and yes, Klaus does get some of them wrong. Hey, it's not like he had much time to study up before being whisked back to the 60s. Also, some changes have been made to this chapter and the previous one to reflect Dave's Jewishness and new last name!

When Dave was fourteen, he and his brother had taken their dog, Laddie, on a walk through a local park, not bothering with a leash because it was a cold day with no one else around, and then Laddie had spotted a stray cat and happily chased it right into a lake. Looking back, Dave still didn’t know how it happened—he and Jon had been laughing too hard to see if Laddie had herded the cat into the lake or if it had just been so crazed with fear that it overcame its hydrophobic inclinations. Dave had taken pity on the poor half-drowned animal, and he never forgot the look the cat gave him when he fished it out. Not angry, not even fearful, really, just bewildered and rather suspicious, like it wasn’t entirely sure that he, too, was going to cast it back in the water.

The very first time Dave ever set eyes on Klaus Hargreeves, his first thought was _he looks like a drowned cat._ He came back to it now. Poor drowned cat Klaus. Confused, defensive, and in desperate need of a hug and a soothing pat on the head.

“Come on,” Dave said. He crossed to the door and picked up Pepper’s leash again.

“Come where? Aren’t we going to talk about this?”

 _This_ being time travel. Because Klaus had dropped into Dave’s life from the future. From a whole new millenium, for God’s sake.

“We’re going to take a walk first.” Pepper, who had been napping on the couch, jumped up and trembled with the force of her wagging tail, and Dave clipped the leash to her collar. “I think we could use a break, and it’ll be dark in a bit so now’s a good time.”

“All right...” Klaus said suspiciously.

Dave shrugged into his leather jacket and handed Klaus his own, and hesitated with his hand on the door knob.

“Are—they—coming?”

It was eerie, watching Klaus watch something Dave couldn’t see. There was something so horribly normal about it—his gaze neither vacant nor unusually intense, to the point where it made Dave feel like _he_ was the oddity. His mother was right there, the woman who had raised him for nineteen years, and he couldn’t see her. Surely he should be able to see her.

“Do you want them to?” Klaus asked.

“Not really,” he admitted.

“Okay.” But Klaus waited for a minute longer, and his face twisted in an expression of pity. “She wants you to know this isn’t normal and you shouldn’t feel bad about it. Parents are supposed to die, and their children are supposed to move on with their lives. She won’t be upset if you don’t want her around all the time.”

“I do,” Dave protested. “Just—not—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Klaus said with a dismissive wave as he opened the door. “You don’t owe them anything special just because they happen to be dead. I piss Ben off all the time. Watch—fuck off, Ben.”

He flipped the bird in his brother’s general direction as he sauntered at the door. Dave paused on the threshold.

“Sorry,” he said to the empty apartment, feeling like an idiot. “We’ll—we’ll be back soon.”

They didn’t speak as they walked down the narrow staircases of their building. Klaus was humming to himself as they walked down the street, but he was a little tone deaf and it took Dave two blocks to recognize the song. _San Francisco_ by Scott McKenzie. He laughed softly to himself, and although Klaus didn’t say anything, he seemed to have heard; his arm swayed closer to Dave’s and their little fingers brushed together.

Klaus always wanted to hold his hand when they were out walking, but Dave could never manage it. He would put his hands on Klaus’s lower back sometimes, but he dropped away at the first funny look, the first sight of a cop car turning the corner. The only exception was the Gay Freedom March, the previous summer. There, in the middle of the crowd, drunk on cheap champagne and swept away in the energy of it all, he had squeezed Klaus’s hand and didn’t let go for hours.

God, as crazy as this was, so many things were making sense in hindsight. Dave glanced at Klaus out of the corner of his eye. He opened his mouth to ask a question and then closed it. Too soon.

They walked through Buena Vista Park, where Pepper amused herself barking at dogs three times her size and trying to chase sparrows. Her legs (and the leash) were too short for her to get within twenty feet of them, but she was pleased with herself, and Klaus cooed with praise. Twice, as they walked, they spotted people they knew;by unspoken agreement, they paused only to exchange a few brief pleasantries before pressing on.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” Dave asked after a few minutes.

“I was going to make osso bucco,” Klaus frowned. “I bought veal.”

“Let’s get something to eat,” Dave said, avoiding his gaze, and Klaus elbowed him. He had been surprised at Klaus’s cooking skills—especially his matzo balls, which were the perfect combination of dense and fluffy on the first try—but the first two attempts at osso bucco had been pretty miserable.

As they left the park, Klaus crossed his arms and shivered. It had been in the low 60s all day, but the temperature was dipping down as the sun made its slow descent.

“Cold?” Dave asked, and when Klaus shrugged, he took off his own jacket and draped it around Klaus’s shoulders. His jacket was good leather, heavier than Klaus’s jean one, and he was wearing a sweater, anyway. He wasn’t sure if, in five years, he’d ever seen _really_ seen Klaus fully clothed.

“Prince Charming.”

“Always, Your Majesty,” Dave teased, and Klaus smiled at the concrete beneath his feet. “So, about Ben...” he said out of nowhere, hoping enough time had passed to dip their toes into serious topics again.

Klaus avoided his gaze as he strutted down the street, clutching the collar of Dave’s coat like a fur cape.

“About Ben. 22 years in life, 29 in death, Korean-American and possibly part alien, 5’9”, Libra... what else? Oh, did I mention dead?”

“How is he _here_?” Dave asked. After five years, he had gotten pretty good at navigating Klaus’s idiosyncratic style of conversation.

“Not sure. This is our first time travel adventure. Best guess is that it’s something to do with my powers—the homing beacon thing. Ghosts are pretty good at finding who they want to find across continents, so maybe they can do it across time, too, and most just haven’t figured it out. Or maybe it’s because it’s me and Ben. We’re brothers, you know? Adopted, but maybe the whole spontaneous fatherless conception thing is more important than blood, anyway. I can _always_ conjure Ben, even if I’m high out of my mind. That’s not true for most of them.”

“Is that… that’s the main reason you’re…?”

“An addict,” Klaus supplied. He giggled to himself. “Practically part of my name at this point. Klaus Hargreeves-Addict. Why not? Rather more descriptive than any of my actual names. But yeah, I suppose that’s the main reason… I started pretty young. And if you think I’m bad now, you should have seen me in my early twenties. I was a mess—I _couldn’t_ get sober if I wanted to, because I was fucking around with meth and coke and shit like that—”

“You still do coke,” Dave frowned.

“Well, yeah, but not _regularly_. Not so much that I go into withdrawal over it. Lucy, Molly, and Mary Jane. They’ve been my main crew for the last, oh, seven years or so, and they’ve never steered me wrong.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned at nothing.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m lying. The main reason is that, almost every day for the last twenty-one years, I’ve decided I wanted to be high. I _started_ because of the corpses and because of my deeply shitty father, but it’s not that simple. That’s something they talk about in rehab,” he added. “Taking responsibility and whatnot. I’ve been to rehab a lot, because Daddy always pays, on the off-chance it makes me useful again. It never made me sober, but every once in a while they teach you something useful.”

There was an argument they needed to have, but Dave decided now wasn’t the time. They walked in the silence as they passed through the park and started heading down Castro Street. It was crowded with cars and pedestrians, people getting out of work early, gathering on their porches with friends. A cluster of young gay guys loitered by the liquor store, batting their eyelashes at passerby in hopes of getting a drink—some of them knew Klaus by name and leaned forward hopefully, but he waved them off and they settled back against brick wall like a flock of pigeons.

Dave suggested they stop as they reached the bottom of the hill, where they came across a little diner they’d visited once or twice before. Klaus agreed. Dave tied Pepper’s leash to a street sign outside, and they got a table by the window so they could watch her. Klaus was inclined to linger over the menu, but Dave ordered for both of them—coffee and a mushroom omelette for Klaus, iced tea and a burger for himself, extra fries for Klaus to steal off his plate—in the hopes that the waitress would leave them alone.

“Tell me about the future.”

“Sucks,” Klaus said immediately, shaking a packet of sugar into his coffee. “Next question.”

“Start with the recent future,” Dave suggested. “Just the next couple of years. C’mon, give me a little preview.”

“I don’t _know_ , Dave,” Klaus whined. “I didn’t exactly have a standard history education. I didn’t memorize what happened in each year of the 1970s.” He thought for a moment. “Oh, _Roe v. Wade_ , that passes. Well, not passes, but, you know what I mean. Abortion becomes legalized.”

“Okay, there’s something.” Dave grinned. “Not that impressive on your part, though. It’s just a yes or no thing, isn’t it?”

Klaus gave him an exasperated look, and a rosy feeling spread through Dave’s chest. Setting aside ghosts and time travel and superpowers, they were still Klaus-and-Dave, and that didn’t have to change.

“Fine, how’s this? Nixon totally did Watergate. He resigns, but Ford pardons him.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, pop culture gets a lot of mileage out of that. What else… oh! You remember a couple of months ago when we helped those guys move their couch into their apartment? Just a couple of buildings down from here?”

“Oh, yeah—Scott and Harvey, that guy you definitely slept with,” Dave said with a grin as he sipped from his glass.

They had gotten the couch halfway up the stairs when Klaus dropped his corner, slapped his forehead and said “ _that’s_ how I know you!”, and had subsequently refused to tell them the reason. Dave had always been amused by it. It wasn’t as if he was unaware of other men’s attraction to Klaus; they had both slept with other people since they started dating, even, so he was hardly going to be put out by Klaus’s sexual escapades _before_ they started dating.

“For the last time, I did _not_ sleep with him,” Klaus said, pointing emphatically. “The reason I knew the _name_ Harvey Milk was because in a couple of years he becomes mayor or something.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“Yeah, it’s a big thing. They made a movie about it, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it so I don’t remember all the details. I think he tells Anita Bryant to go fuck herself, but that might just be subtext.”

“Anita Bryant? The orange juice lady?”

“Yeah, she’s fucking awful. Oh, speaking of famous shitshows, now you know why I said we _had_ to go to Woodstock and refused to go to Altamont.”

“Huh. Yeah, that does make sense.”

They fell silent for a moment as the waitress returned with their food. Klaus poked at his omelette with his fork and heaved a great, dramatic sigh before he took a bite, commenting as he did so that it wasn’t osso bucco, but he _supposed_ it would do. Dave cut his burger in half and then stared down at his plate. His throat felt as dry as dust, and suddenly he had no appetite at all. He drained his iced tea and leaned his elbows on the table.

“I’m coming with you, Klaus.”

“Let’s not talk about this,” he said wearily. “We’re just going to fight, and then I’m going to leave and it’ll spoil everything. I don’t want to fight.”

“I do. You realize in five years we’ve never had a real fight?”

Klaus raised an eyebrow.

“What relationship have _you_ been in, honey? We fought the whole time we were at Kaliflower.”

“No, _I_ fought with _you_. You mostly… argued for a little bit, then got high and either laughed it off or gave in.”

“Okay, so you won most of the arguments,” Klaus said. He stole a french fry. “Not something most guys would complain about.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Dave said, frustrated. “Klaus… you take the easy way out. It’s what you always do. And listen, when you were a kid, I don’t blame you. God knows you had to deal with way more than most of us, and if the easy way out is the only one than yeah, take it. But now—now you’re 34 and I don’t know if you’re actually invested in this relationship or if it’s just been convenient for you. I don’t know if you’re _happy_ with me or if you’re high.”

“I can’t be both?” Klaus asked lightly, folding his legs.

“Can you tell the difference?”

Klaus smiled at him, a bittersweet smile that didn’t touch his eyes. He sat forward, uncrossing his legs, and took Dave’s hand in his. He took a shaky breath and lightly raked his fingers over Dave’s palm.

“There was no difference,” he murmured. “There was either… numbness or pain, and then you… everything is better with you. The high is sweeter. Sobriety is—it still sucks, babe, you’ve got to understand that. It’s just so _hard_.”

“I know.”

“And when I’m sober with you, I am happy, really happy, but it’s like the happiness feels better and the pain hurts more and the whole time, in the back of my mind, I know it’s going to end—”

“Because you won’t put in the work for it.”

“Because I _have to go back_ and you _can’t come with me_. Do you think this is easy for me? I’m doing this for your benefit, not mine.”

Dave closed his hand around Klaus’s fingers, and pushed his plate out of the way so he could take both of Klaus’s hands in his. Hello and Goodbye. He hadn’t got the joke in Vietnam, but in 1970 their friend Catie had brought out a Ouija board at her birthday party and he’d understood, and now he also understood why Klaus had laughed himself hysterical.

 _Hello_ , he thought. _Always hello. Don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello…_

“We saved each other a half a dozen times in Vietnam,” he said forcing his voice to remain calm. “We’ve been through another half-dozen police raids in the years since, at least. You know I can take care of myself. You know I’m never going back to my hometown, and as for my life here…” He shrugged. “I like my job, but not that much. I like my friends, but Klaus, you know what it’s like here. People come and go. There was a point where all my friends were from New York, from the Army, from Kaliflower, and then I lost most of them for one reason or another. Maybe it’s arrogant of me, but I think I’m charming enough to make new friends again.”

“You are extremely charming,” Klaus agreed. “I’m just not sure the time-traveling assassins would agree, and I think that should form a major part of this discussion.”

“I get it. You don’t want to put me in danger, but somehow I’m supposed to let you go into danger and be okay with it? And let’s face it, honey, you may be a superhero, but you’re not Superman, right? The only thing standing between you and death at the hands of these psychos is training, and I’ve had training too. You must not have gone through boot camp, but I can tell you, making it into the airborne infantry is no joke.”

“Yeah, and neither is being murdered, Dave! I don’t care if you can handle yourself, lots of people are tough but that doesn’t mean they should all run towards assassins when they don’t have to.” There was a pause. Dave tilted his head. “Don’t say it,” Klaus warned. “I told you, I’m doing this for my family.”

“Your family,” Dave agreed. “The people you love unconditionally, even though you fight sometimes, even though they have flaws, even though strange circumstances brought you together. Your family, who you’d do anything for.”

“Stop doing that,” Klaus said weakly.

“Stop…?”

“Being… persuasive. And kind. And... perfect.”

He was staring at their clasped hands, and with exquisite care he lifted Dave’s right hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Excuse me.”

Dave nearly leapt out of his skin, and he yanked his hand back. It was early, still, and the diner was mostly empty—he had forgotten that they weren’t alone. Their waitress, a short girl with mousy blonde hair, was standing at the end of the table and looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” she said, tugging nervously at her ear lobe. “You can’t do—that—here.”

“Do _that_?” Klaus said with exaggerated innocence, fluttering his eyelashes. “Oh no, we would never dream of doing _that._ We have a perfectly good bedroom, thank you, and we do cherish our privacy—”

“Klaus,” Dave admonished under his breath as the waitress turned bright red.

“The owner doesn’t like it,” she said, and then she disappeared back towards the kitchen. Klaus sat back in his seat, a sour expression on his face.

“I really do hate that, you know. That’s one argument for the future.”

“Things are different, huh?”

“Oh yeah. There are pricks, you know, there are always pricks, but there’s also non-discrimination laws and gay marriage and legal sex and whatnot. Shit, Dave, do me a favor and promise you’ll wear condoms _every time_ once I’m gone, okay?”

Dave wasn’t listening. He was stuck on _and whatnot,_  on the incredible casualness in Klaus’s voice. He opened his mouth to speak and found himself unable to. He swallowed thickly.

“Klaus,” he said in a very small voice. “Take me with you. Please… please take me with you.”

Klaus had been fiddling with his omelette again, but at Dave’s words he looked up and set his fork down. His eyes, glittering green, dark around the edges, narrowed on Dave’s face, and suddenly he knew that Klaus could see everything he couldn’t say. Four years of fear and worry he had shoved way down deep—not even for Klaus’s sake, but for his own.

The thing about Dave was that, in all honesty, he didn’t think he was a very brave person. His father had once told him that courage was not about having no fear, but in facing one’s fear and overcoming it, and Dave had never done that. Vietnam, moving to California, every gay bar and raid since. He’d survived because he was in denial, always aware in the back of his mind that if he acknowledged his fear—if he acknowledged the possibility that he might be afraid—he would give in to it.

The only really brave thing he’d ever done was come out to his family, and he had only managed to do that because Klaus was there, sitting quietly in the corner of the living room, taking him back to the hotel to ice his black eye and to hold him when he cried.

If Klaus left… he didn’t know what he would do. He might die—he could imagine any number of terrifying things that might kill him. Or maybe he would lose his nerve, and roll the clock back to 1967. Nice normal Dave, who kept secrets, who lived his life according to others’ expectations, who locked away the very best parts of himself.

He couldn’t say any of this. Klaus thought he was kind and strong and perfect, and Dave didn’t know how to tell him otherwise.

“You really love me?” Klaus asked in an undertone, and Dave thought back to the early days of their relationship, when he had wanted to say it and Klaus hadn’t wanted to hear it. Even for years after that, if he was too genuine in his compliments, Klaus would cringe and change the topic.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“If I do take you…” Klaus said, leaning forward on his elbows. “You’ll have to make an honest man out of me.”

“Yeah,” Dave whispered.

“That really means something in 2019. Like… taxes and registries.” A choked laugh escaped his chest, and Klaus smiled. “Still got those rings?”

Wordlessly, Dave dug into his pocket. He fumbled with the little bag and couldn’t get it open at first, and then he dropped both rings on Klaus’s plate.

“Shit.”

“No harm done.” Klaus picked up the smaller band, the one with the daisies engraved on it. He slipped it on his left ring finger and wiggled it for Dave to see. “Look at that—fits perfect.”

Again Dave was speechless, this time because he was grinning too broadly to force words out of his mouth. He picked up the second ring and put it on his own finger. It was a little bit snug, and he might have to pull hard to get it off, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t plan on taking it off. He and Klaus sat for a moment in comfortable silence, smiling at each other like fools, and then Klaus glanced over his shoulder.

“You know what, we’re not planning on hanging around much longer. Fuck the owner.”

He lunged across the table and pulled Dave into a kiss, and Dave, dizzy with happiness, kissed him back.

—

Two days later, Dave was sitting on the couch in their apartment, holding the phone’s receiver against his shoulder and staring at the buttons. His mother, according to Klaus, was sitting on the couch beside him, but other than that, he was alone—Klaus had taken Pepper out to give him some privacy. He didn’t know where Ben was, but apparently Ben was polite and almost never used his ghostly powers to spy on anyone.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, and he punched in the numbers with more force than necessary and waited for the line to connect.

“Hello, you’ve reached the Katz household.”

“Hi, Dad. It’s me. Dave.”

There was a pause, and Dave twisted the phone cord around his finger. The last time he had seen his father in person, they had shouted at each other, offended each other, and both declared that they had no interest in seeing each other again without an apology. But that was in 1969, and in ’70 he had called his father a few days before Yom Kippur, and they struck a grudging truce. They talked twice a year, and as long as they kept the conversations short and relatively light, they got along fine, which was better than Dave could say about his relationship with his brother.

“So it is. Well. How are you, son?”

“I’m good.” Dave cleared his throat. “Dad I, um. I just wanted to give you a call and let you know that you might not hear from me very much in the next couple—well, maybe the next couple years. Klaus and I are going away for a while.”

“You’ve been arrested.”

“No! No, no no no, it’s nothing like that. I mean we’ve got some money saved up and we’re going to be doing some traveling out of the country. We don’t have much of a plan yet, and we’re not sure when… if we’re coming back.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, thanks for letting me know. I think it’s good for young people to travel. It’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah.” Dave picked at the phone cord again and bit his lip. _This is the last conversation we’ll have for fifty years_ , he wanted to say. _I’m leaving forever, and if we ever talk again it will be through Klaus, because my boyfriend can talk to ghosts—Mom says hi, by the way._ “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know. Running away.”

There was a very long pause, and Dave wondered if his father had hung up, or if he was working himself up into a really masterful shouting match. His father didn’t have a quick temper, and whenever he had shouted at Dave or his brother as kids, there had been a long period of glowering silence that was almost as effective as the raised voice that followed.

“Listen to me, David. I’m a conventional sort. I don’t like that place you’re in now. I don’t like the kind of things that go on there. I don’t like that—person you’re living with. But you and I, we’re different people, and I know the difference between running away and running _towards_ something. The first one is cowardice, and the second one is courage. Don’t you dare apologize for having that kind of courage. Not to me or anyone. You understand?”

Dave gripped the phone so tight he thought he might crack the plastic. Tears choked his throat, and he nodded before realizing his father couldn’t see him.

“Yeah, Dad,” he croaked. “I get it.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, about that stuff you said before—”

“Before, when?”

“The last time I was in New York.”

“Dave, I don’t remember what I said.”

“Well, I do,” Dave said forcefully. “And at the time I was angry and I wasn’t thinking clearly, but now that I’ve had some time to think it over, there are some things I have to say.” He paused for a moment, and when there was no objection, he continued. “I was gay before I met Klaus, Dad. I knew I was gay before I met Klaus, and he wasn’t the first man I’d been with. He was just—the first one I met who wasn’t afraid. I was always afraid when I was growing up. I pretended I was like you because that got me through it, but Klaus never had that. He had a shitty father and a shitty childhood, and he got through it on his own. He knows exactly who he is. And who he is is… weird and obnoxious and rude and over-the-top… and funny, and kind, and loyal, and braver than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t expect you to understand, but I think it’s important for you to know that I’m happy. That he _makes_ me happy.”

The second hand on his watch ticked by. He wondered if his father had set down the phone and walked away, or if at some point during his speech he had missed the click of the receiver.

“Dad?”

“I’m glad that you’re happy, Dave. And your mother, if she were here, I think she’d be happy, too.”

“Thanks, Dad,” he said with a soft laugh.

“All right, I’ll let you go. Do me a favor, though, and give Jon a call, won’t you?”

“I don’t know…”

“He’s your brother, Dave.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Good. Love you, kid.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

The line went dead. Dave set the phone down on the cradle and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. That was it. It could have gone a lot worse—“that person” was far from the worst thing his family had ever called Klaus, and Dave had said the word “gay” more than once without being scolded, and his father was happy for him. That was good. That was as good an ending as he could have hoped for.

He dropped his hands and stared at the phone again. He didn’t want to call Jon. When they were young, Dave and his brother had been close, but even then, Jon had been a little proud, a little arrogant. Back then, Dave hadn’t minded, because he knew his brother was proud _of him_. It wasn’t until he got back from Vietnam that he realized his little brother had put him on a pedestal, and when he climbed down, Jon had reacted badly. Their father had been inclined to blame Klaus for Dave being gay; Jon had blamed Dave.

But he had promised.

They kept a small notebook by the phone with people’s numbers, and he had to check for Jon’s new phone number. He had moved out a year and a half ago, when he got married. Dave had not been invited to the wedding, and he only had the number because his father had insisted on giving it to him. He had never dialed it. He flipped to the back of the book, where the number was listed under Jon’s initials, and punched in the digits.

“Hello?” a bright, feminine voice, answered, and he was momentarily taken aback. What was his sister-in-law’s name? Sarah? Susana? “Hello?”

“Hi,” he said. “Um, is Jon there?”

“He just got in. Who should I tell him is calling?”

“It’s Dave. His brother.”

“Oh! Oh.” She hesitated, and there was a scratching sound as she put the receiver down. “It’s your brother,” he heard her say in a muffled voice. There was a deeper sound in response, but he couldn’t make out the words. “I’m sorry, he’s not available right now.”

“Can you just tell him—”

Someone hung up. He wasn’t sure if it was Sarah-Susana, or if Jon had taken the phone from her hand and set it down. Dave was still for a moment, listening to the dial tone, thinking of what Klaus had said during their initial conversation on Tuesday. _He might change. A lot of people do._

In 2019, his brother would be… 72 years old, if he was still alive. It was a long time from now, and he might change. Maybe in 2019 they could talk.

Or maybe not. It seemed like showing up and claiming to be a 72-year-old’s long-lost, ageless, estranged gay brother would be a pretty good way to induce a heart attack, and although Dave didn’t _like_ his brother very much, he had no desire to kill him.

“I’m okay, Mom,” he said, in case she was listening. “And you know, they’ll be okay. Jon will look after Dad, and he’ll have his wife, and eventually they’ll have kids… and I’ll have Klaus. We’ll all be okay, and we’ll all be in the time and place that makes us happiest. It’s all going to work out.”

His voice sounded unnaturally chipper. He swallowed thickly and then leapt up from the couch before he could start to doubt himself.

Over the last couple of days, he and Klaus had set about packing up their life in San Francisco. They had gone around to as many friends as possible on short notice, to say goodbye and hand out a few mementos—they were going hitch-hiking in Europe, they said, and possibly taking the Hippie Trail all the way to India and Nepal, so naturally there was no telling when they could contact anyone again. That very morning they had found three gay teenagers, newly arrived in the city and looking for rooms, who were only too delighted to sublet the apartment with most of its furnishings.

Everything else they needed was packed already, but Dave double-checked everything anyway. Klaus traveled light, and his bag contained only some of his favorite articles of clothing, his _Pastel Blues_ and _Chér_ vinyls, and his second edition of _Howl and Other Poems,_ which Allen Ginsberg had signed with his name and a flirty, borderline obscene note. Dave’s rucksack contained more books, keepsakes, and a photo album, as well as his birth certificate and all the rest of his personal paperwork—Klaus seemed to think that Allison could work her magic and make them all look legitimate and appropriate for 2019. Dave wanted to be suspicious about that, but honestly, at this point, what was the use?

As he rifled through his things, making sure it was all there, Dave’s hands stilled on the photo album. He took it out and began to slowly flip through the pages. The first four pages contained pictures he’d had since before Vietnam—family portraits, snapshots of him and his brother on vacation, his bar mitzvah, his high school and college graduations. The bulk of the photos, though, were from 1967 to the present. Photos from boot camp, the jungle, Saigon, Greenwich Village, Woodstock, and San Francisco. Dave was in a few of them. Klaus was in most.

He lingered over one particular set of photographs, taken right after they arrived in California. In one of them, Dave and Klaus posed in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, Dave’s arm around Klaus’s waist and Klaus’s around his shoulders, an inch of space between them and perfect posed smiles on their faces. In the other, Klaus’s mouth was open in a shout of laughter as a sudden gust of wind blew his curls into his face, and half of Dave’s expression was obscured by his raised hand as he tried to keep his own hair out of his eyes. He grinned when he saw it; it was one of his favorite photos. He looked at the first photograph again and, after a moment of hesitation, slipped it out of the album.

They had left most of their miscellaneous “home” items in their drawers, and he found an envelope and a stamp without much trouble, and wrote down his father’s address. Dad could throw it away if he wanted, but Dave wanted to give him the option.

He left the apartment and went down the street to the nearest mailbox, and just as he was about to turn back he spotted Klaus and Pepper returning from their walk. Klaus waved and bent down to unhook Pepper from her leash.

“Go to Daddy!”

Pepper ran as fast as her little legs could take her, and Dave knelt down and caught her as she took a running leap into his chest.

“Speaking of,” Klaus said as they reached each other. “You don’t want kids or anything, right?”

“Klaus, I haven’t slept with a girl since I was eighteen. I think we’re pretty far past that.”

“No, I mean adoption or whatever. Lots of gays do it in the future—I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, because no adoption agency in its right _mind_ would give me a baby. We can always kidnap Five and pretend we’re his dads, but he’s at such a trying age…”

“Jesus,” Dave said, shaking his head. “Every time I think I’m ready for the future, you hit me with something like that. This is going to be one hell of a trip.”

“You know it, baby.”

There was a sort of breathless silence in the apartment when they returned. Their bags were on the couch, and between them—the Briefcase. The briefcase that Klaus had carried everywhere since the moment he arrived in Vietnam. He had told them, then, that it was his typewriter case, and he never opened it because it was broken and anyway what did he need a typewriter for, and every time Dave had asked in the years since, Klaus distracted him with a blowjob. It had worked embarrassingly well.

They weren’t totally sure how the briefcase worked. Klaus said he had opened it and there was a flash of life and that was it—good morning, Vietnam. With luck, it would be less spontaneous this time. They were worried about Pepper, too, but Klaus had arrived in Vietnam with his towel and jacket and everything, so they figured that, if he put her in his bag along with her favorite pillow, it would be okay.

“Good?” Dave asked. Klaus scratched Pepper behind the ears and she settled in and closed her eyes.

“Good.” He took a deep breath. “Last chance to back out, babe. If this shakes out wrong, we could be in… the Irish potato famine or the apocalypse or…” He shuddered dramatically. “Idaho.”

“So either we’ll have no potatoes, or a lot of potatoes,” Dave said in a somber voice. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

He held up his left hand and wiggled his ring finger, and Klaus smiled and hooked it with his own. The rings made a soft clacking sound. His gaze fell to Dave’s lips and he kissed him—the kind of fierce, desperate kiss two people shared when they weren’t entirely certain whether they were about to time-travel or disintegrate.

Then he dropped Dave’s hand and turned to face the briefcase. Dave swung his knapsack onto his back and looked over his shoulder at their apartment. It was a crappy apartment, all things considered—but, he thought wistfully, they had been happy here. Without looking, he fumbled for Klaus’s hand and squeezed it tight, and then he also looked at the briefcase.

“Ready?” Klaus said, and in the same moment they each used their free hand to open one of the latches on either side of the case.

“Set—” Dave murmured, and they lifted the top of the case and there was a flash of blue light—

He was on a bus. Klaus’s hand was still in his, warm and solid and real. The black briefcase was sitting on their laps, bouncing against their knees as the bus drove over a pothole. Dave blinked at the scene before him and turned to look at Klaus.

“Did it—work?” he asked. Of course it had worked. But his brain had short-circuited, because he had maybe just _time-traveled_ , and he couldn’t take in any details that would allow him to determine whether they had made it to 2019 or—well, maybe not the potato famine. But some time in the less distant future, perhaps. Klaus blinked dazedly at the row of seats in front of them, and then looked towards the front of the bus, where the month and day was displayed in red neon letters.

“It worked,” he whispered, and then he laughed. “It worked! Oh my god, Dave, we did it! Pepper, we did it!”

Klaus grabbed Dave by the collar and yanked him into a kiss, and his heart fluttered—and then stopped as the bus driver called “Hey, you!” angrily. Klaus looked over his shoulder. “I’ve already had to kick you off twice. I told you, man, keep it PG!”

“We just got _engaged_ ,” Klaus said piteously.

“No tongue,” the bus driver said in a stern voice, and Dave shook with (hysterical?) laughter.

“Can do, ma’am,” and he pressed a chaste kiss to Klaus’s cheek.

—

As miraculous as it was, time travel was kind of a bitch.

Dave lifted himself out of the bathtub and winced. Klaus had suggested baths might help with the infernal itching that settled down _under_ their skin, but it didn’t seem to have worked. And his headache actually seemed to have gotten worse; the change in elevation from lying down to standing was not supposed to be this difficult. He toweled dry and looked at the corner where he had left his knapsack. It had mysteriously disappeared, leaving only a pair of black briefs in its wake. Dave groaned and stepped into them, wrapping the towel around his waist.

He hesitated for a moment before he entered the corridor. He had gotten a brief tour when they first arrived, and although he had been eager to see the place where Klaus grew up, he really didn’t like it at all. The second floor alone was five times the size of their apartment in San Francisco, and the whole place was much more well-furnished, but it made the back of Dave’s neck itch even worse than time travel.

There were ominous reminders of the Umbrella Academy tacked up everywhere, from the martial arts flash cards to the portraits of grim, unsmiling children. (“Which one is you?” Dave had murmured when he first saw it, unable to pick out Klaus without seeing his eyes or smile, and it had taken Klaus a minute to answer.) Klaus had expected to run into some of his siblings when they arrived—or perhaps his mother (the robot) or his father’s butler-valet-confidant (the talking chimpanzee)—but so far, every room they had seen was empty.

It was a lonely house. Dave had the feeling that was true whether it was empty or full, and the whole place gave him the creeps.

“Klaus, come on,” he called as he walked down the long hallway to Klaus’s bedroom.. “I really don’t want to be naked the first time I run into someone from your fa…”

His voice trailed away as he approached the open door of Klaus’s bedroom. Klaus was sitting on the bed, dressed in his favorite tank top from the 70s and a pair of laced up leather pants (decidedly a new millenium fashion piece, Dave noted in the back of his mind, and also _holy fuck_ ), scratching Pepper behind her ear, and in front of him stood a thirteen-year-old boy in a school uniform. He had been in the middle of a sentence, and there was a gleam in his eye, but when he turned to look at Dave, it faded, replaced by shock and then a thundercloud of displeasure.

“Hi,” Dave said awkwardly. He stuck out his hand. “Um—Five? Nice to meet you. Dave, Dave Katz.”

“You brought. someone. _back_?” Five asked, rounding on Klaus. “You moron, what the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“Dick too bomb, bro,” Klaus shrugged with a grin as he fell back onto the bed.

“Do you even _know_ what this will do? Jesus, you thought Hazel and Cha-Cha were bad? There’s going to be a ticket opened _just_ for him! They’re going to send the best they’ve got!”

“Sorry, who is they?” Dave asked. Five ignored him.

“Where’s the briefcase, Klaus?”

They had tossed it on the bed when they arrived, half an hour ago. Dave saw Klaus’s hand slide across the bedspread and grasp the handle as he sat up again, suddenly alert.

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t working. The glass eye was a dead end. I need more time—I need to start over. Give it to me.”

“Not going to happen,” Klaus said, unexpectedly serious. “If you go back, that means I _don’t_ go back, and that means Dave probably dies in the jungle somewhere—no offense, babe—instead of ending up here. And Dave is a non-negotiable.”

“Give me the goddamn briefcase, Klaus!” Five growled.

Then he _jumped_ in another flash of blue light and was on the bed, trying to wrest the briefcase from Klaus’s grasp. Klaus swore and corrected his grip, and there was a series of flashes as Five jumped again, coming at him from different angles as fast as lightning.

“ _Ha_!” Klaus laughed triumphantly. “That’s right—you can’t phase me, bitch! Forgot about that, didn’t you?”

His triumph was short-lived as Five bit his hand, and Klaus yowled in protest.

Dave sighed and rested his hands on his hips. He knew, objectively, that this was a very serious issue, and that both Klaus and Five were doing their best to save lives. He knew that. But at the moment, they were no more and no less than two brothers wrestling over something they both wanted, pulling out every dirty trick in the book, and he couldn’t help but think it was all very childish—especially for two men pushing 34 and 58. Pepper was jumping around the bed and snarling, and that wasn’t helping his headache at all.

Also, he really wished he was wearing pants.

“Hey, Klaus?” he said loudly. “Do you maybe want to tell your brother our plan?”

Five paused with one foot pushed against the wall for leverage, one hand wrapped around the handle of the briefcase, and the other yanking at Klaus’s hair.

“What plan?”

“We came up with some suggestions before we used the briefcase. If you could stop attacking my lover for a moment, I’ll tell you about it.”

Five raised an eyebrow. Dave knew that all thirteen-year-olds held only deep disdain for the world and all its inhabitants, but even so, it was disconcerting to see such cynicism on such a young face. Five put his foot down and let go of the briefcase. He didn’t let go of Klaus’s hair, though, until he had pulled Klaus’s head back so he could look him in the eye.

“How long were you back there?” he asked.

“About five years.”

Five raised his other eyebrow.

“That’s longer than three weeks,” he said nonsensically. Klaus nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Non-negotiable?”

“Non-fucking-negotiable.”

“All right.” Five hopped down off the bed and put his hand in his pockets. “Tell me about your plan, Dan Spatz.”

Dave opened his mouth to correct him, but the friendly smile on the boy’s mouth indicated that he knew exactly what he had just said, so he decided to let it go. He _really_ wished he was wearing pants.

“Well, it was more Klaus’s plan, but I was in the airborne for a year and a half so I can help executing it if you need me—basically, we split them up and try and get information from one of them—Hazel, right?”

“Why Hazel?”

“While they were torturing me,” Klaus said with emphasis. “I conjured some of their previous victims. One of them told me that Hazel was supposed to kill his wife, too, but he let her go. Hazel’s the weak link.”

Five considered this.

“Okay,” he said. “Sure, I can work with that. Welcome to 2019, Dan,” he said, patting Dave on the arm as he walked towards the door. “You’re just in time for the apocalypse.”

“Yeah, hey, about that,” Klaus said, standing. “Do you have a timeframe on the whole world-ending thing? Because we’re actually planning on getting hitched, and I need to start putting together my trousseau. What’ve we got, a month, a year…?”

Five smiled again and bumped his fist against the doorframe.

“Four days.”

He disappeared, leaving Dave and Klaus in the vacuum his words had created. Dave’s stomach turned over, and his headache gave a nasty throb. The world was ending in four days. He could have enjoyed 46 years of blissful ignorance, and now the world was ending and he had to either join up with a team of fucked-up former superheroes to stop it, or give in and die. Or….

The briefcase was still on the bed. Dave stared at it for a long moment, and then realized that Klaus was staring at him. He turned his head and forced a smile. Klaus’s lips twitched hopefully, and Dave’s smile came easier. No, there was no or. He’d made this decision a long time ago—not in the past three days, but in the past three, four, five years. From the very first moment he’d cupped Klaus’s cheek in the corner of a darkened club and leaned in for a kiss and decided that it was worth it. That _he_ was worth it, whatever ‘it’ was.

Dave took Klaus’s hand in his and lifted it to his lips, kissing soft skin and the smooth finish of his wooden ring.

“I didn’t want a long engagement, anyway.”

Klaus beamed. He threw his arms around Dave’s neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and began to croon into his ear, off-key and perfect.

_“Going to the chapel and we’re gonna get married… going to the chapel of love...”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm so flattered that you all would be interested in a sequel, but I would prefer if people stopped asking for one. The plot of this show is pretty hard for me to follow and write for, and I'm much more comfortable with these kinds of short, character-focused pieces; the Hargreeves siblings are so scattered and have so much to do in the last half of the season that it's hard to write them without getting involved in the plot. That kind of fic would take a lot more time and energy on my part, and I've recently started a new job and can't promise that I'll have any to spare in the immediate future.  
> Asking for a sequel actually makes me LESS likely to write one, because it makes me feel like my current output is inadequate, even if that is not your intention. I'd prefer that comments focus on what you like about THIS fic, not a hypothetical future one that probably won't get written at all. But I really do appreciate all the comments and I'm glad you've enjoyed this fic so much!
> 
> If you are hungering for some Dave-in-the-future fic with lots of Hargreeves siblings interaction, I'm throwing in another plug for rivlee, this time "[Such Unimaginable Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977427/chapters/42463745)."


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